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Hybrid governance as a dynamic hub for violent non-state actors: examining the case of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This paper aims to expand the concept of hybrid governance and analyses the case of Rio Janeiro, where criminal control coexists with the state. This study addresses the following research question: is Rio de Janeiro an important case for expanding the concept of hybrid governance in peace and security studies? The results show that not only can it be considered a space of hybrid governance, but also a dynamic hub with constant violence outbreaks with local and global impact.

Organized Crime; Hybrid Governance; Violent Non-State Actors; Rio de Janeiro

Introduction

This article explores how formal and informal governance interact to control violence in Rio de Janeiro, perpetrated by both state and non-state actors, according to the concept of hybrid governance. The issue we seek to explore focuses on the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro1 1 This study adopts the geographic delimitation of the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro (MRRJ). It includes Rio de Janeiro and 21 neighbouring cities with approximately 12.2 million inhabitants. Retrieved from https://www.modelarametropole.com.br/rmrj/ in May 29, 2021. , a geographical space of action and interaction between different types of violent non-state actors (VNSAs), as well as the state toward social and market control — especially illicit drugs and arms markets.

Since the 1980s, Latin America experienced the emergence of several VNSAs with governance capacities (Tickner et al. 2011Tickner, A.; García, D. and C. Arreaza. Actores Violentos No Estatales y Narcotráfico en Colombia. IN: Mejía, Daniel and A. Gaviria. Política Antidrogas en Colombia. 413-445. Bogotá: Uniandes. 2011.; Kurtenbach 2013Kurtenbach, S. “The ‘Happy Outcomes’ May Not Come at All – Postwar Violence in Central America”. Civil Wars 15, no. 1 (2013): 105–122. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2013.850884
https://doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2013.85...
; Rodrigues et al. 2017Rodrigues, T; Kalil, M; Zepeda, R; Rosen, J. “War Zone Acapulco: urban drug-trafficking in the Americas” Contexto Internacional 39, no. 3 (2017): 609-631. doi: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-8529.2017390300008
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-8529.20173...
; Perea & Pearce 2019), originated from distinct factors, among which: economic, political and social crises, as well as intrastate conflicts. Although the United Nations General Assembly (2003) and the II Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC 2014)Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños - CELAC. II CELAC Summit, 28-29 January 2014. http://celac.cubaminrex.cu/sites/default/files/ficheros/havana_declaration_celac.pdf. Accessed Sept 19, 2021
http://celac.cubaminrex.cu/sites/default...
recognized the region as a “zone of peace”, it is clear that interstate peace does not translate to peace for the general population, which experiences daily forms of violence(s) triggered by both state and criminals.

If one observes the recent past in the region in terms of homicide rates, it can be regarded as one of the most violent regions in the world. When comparing the South American homicide rate with the global average, the numbers indicate a disturbing singularity. While the average number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants is 6.1 in the rest of the world, in South America this rate is 400% higher (UNODC 2019United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime – UNODC. “Global Study on Homicide: homicide, development, and the Sustainable Development Goals”. Booklet 4, 2019. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/global-study-on-homicide.html. Accessed May 30th, 2021.
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-...
).

In the last two and a half decades, there has been a robust production of theoretical works, mainly related to the phenomenon of communities of long peace, negative peace, hybrid peace, blockages to peace and security in South America (Holsti 1996Holsti, K. The State, War, and the State of War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1996.; Kacowicz 1998Kacowicz, A. Zones of Peace in the Third World. South America in Comparative Perspective. Albany: State University of New York, 1998.; Mares 2001Mares, D. Violent Peace. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.; Buzan et al. 1998Buzan, B.; O. Weaver, O. and J. De Wilde. Security: A new framework for analysis. Boulder, Co.: Lynne Rienner, 1998.; Oelsner 2007Oelsner, A. “Friendship, mutual trust and the evolution of regional peace in the international system”. Critical review of international social and political philosophy 10, no. 2 (2007): 257-279. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230701208061
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369823070120806...
; Battaglino 2012Battaglino, J. “The coexistence of peace and conflict in South America toward a new conceptualization of types of peace” Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 55, no. 2 (2012): 131-151. doi: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-73292012000200008
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-7329201200...
; Villa & Pimenta 2016Villa, R. and M. Pimenta. “A longa paz na América do Sul: questionamentos às teses da paz negativa na região” Papel Político 21, no.2 (2016): 435-468. doi: https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.papo21-2.lpas
https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.papo2...
; Ferreira & Richmond 2021). These discussions relate to another important topic, which is both formal and informal governance (including the lack of state control) in areas with high violence rates. Although much of hybrid governance literature examines empirical cases from urban settings (Arias 2018Arias, E. D. “Criminal organizations and the policymaking process” Global Crime 19, no. 3-4 (2018): 339-361. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17440572.2018.1471990
https://doi.org/10.1080/17440572.2018.14...
; Davis 2020Davis, D. “City, nation, network: Shifting territorialities of sovereignty and urban violence in Latin America”. Urban Planning 5, no. 3 (2020): 206-216. doi: https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v5i3.3095
https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v5i3.3095...
; Fahlberg 2018Fahlberg, A. N. “Rethinking Favela governance: Non violent politics in Rio de Janeiro’s gang territories”. Politics & Society 46, no. 4 (2018): 485-512. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329218795851
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032329218795851...
; Feltran 2020Feltran, G. The Entangled City: Crime as Urban Fabric in Sao Paulo. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2020.; Lessing 2021Lessing, B. “Conceptualizing Criminal Governance”. Perspectives on Politics 19, no. 3 (2021): 854-873. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001243
https://doi.org/10.1017/S153759272000124...
; Willis 2015)Willis, G. The Killing Consensus: Police, Organized Crime, and the Regulation of Life and Death in Urban Brazil. Oakland, California: University of California Press. 2015., other experts have focused on different spots in South America to better understand hybrid governance (Villa & Pimenta 2019Villa, R.D. and M. S. Pimenta. “Violent non-State Actors and New Forms of Governance: Exploring the Colombian and Venezuelan Border Zone” Journal Of Human Security 15, no. 1 (2019): 6-18. doi: https://doi.org/10.12924/johs2019.15010006
https://doi.org/10.12924/johs2019.150100...
; Pimenta & Rosero 2020Pimenta, M. and Rosero, L. “Crímen Organizado Transnacional en América del Sur: Un análisis de la presencia y gobernanza de actores armados no estatales en la frontera de Colombia y Venezuela” Monções 9, no. 17 (2020): 364-393. doi: https://doi.org/10.30612/rmufgd.v9i17.10952
https://doi.org/10.30612/rmufgd.v9i17.10...
; Villa et al. 2021)Villa, R. D.; C. de M. Braga and M. A. S. V. Ferreira. “Violent Nonstate Actors and the Emergence of Hybrid Governance in South America” Latin American Research Review 56, no. 1 (2021): 36–49. doi: http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.756
http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.756...
.

In many places where violence is perpetrated, criminal control coexists symbiotically with state legitimacy (Lessing 2021Lessing, B. “Conceptualizing Criminal Governance”. Perspectives on Politics 19, no. 3 (2021): 854-873. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001243
https://doi.org/10.1017/S153759272000124...
; Feltran 2020Feltran, G. The Entangled City: Crime as Urban Fabric in Sao Paulo. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2020.). The very notion of a regulation of violence practiced by non-state actors was already outlined in classical studies by Boaventura de Sousa Santos (1977)Sousa Santos, B. “The Law of the Oppressed: The Construction and Reproduction of Legality in Pasargada” Law & Society Review 12, no. 1 (1977): 5-126. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3053321
https://doi.org/10.2307/3053321...
and Elizabeth Leeds (1996)Leeds, E. “Cocaine and parallel polities in the Brazilian urban periphery: Constraints on local-level democratization”. Latin American Research Review 31, no. 3 (1996): 47-83. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2503884
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2503884...
. Thus, “in such an environment [of hybrid governance], the ‘state’ does not have a privileged position as the political framework that provides security, welfare and representation; it has to share authority, legitimacy and capacity with other structures” (Boege et al. 2008Boege, V., Brown, A., Clements, K., Nolan, A. On Hybrid Political Orders and Emerging States. Berlin: Berghof Research Center. 2008., 10).

Within this debate, this article makes a new contribution to the literature. Based on a single case study methodology2 2 This methodological choice is important, since when giving life to a conceptual construction, it is also willing to show a methodological path that is self-constructed. From the moment the theoretical construction process starts, it gradually moves forward. As addressed by Ben Willis, “[S]ingle case study analysis has a great deal to offer as a means of both understanding and explaining contemporary international relations”. Moreover, “the ‘uniqueness’ of the explanation is recognized, but it is described in more general terms. A single historical event cannot be ignored, but it must be considered as part of a class of such events ‘even if it happens only once’” (George 1979, 43). , and guided by official documents and think-tank reports, we depart from the question: is Rio de Janeiro an important case for expanding the concept of hybrid governance in peace and security studies, as developed by previous works (Villa et al. 2021Villa, R. D.; C. de M. Braga and M. A. S. V. Ferreira. “Violent Nonstate Actors and the Emergence of Hybrid Governance in South America” Latin American Research Review 56, no. 1 (2021): 36–49. doi: http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.756
http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.756...
; Idler 2012Idler, A. “Exploring Agreements of Convenience Made among Violent Non-State Actors”. Perspectives on Terrorism 6, no. 4-5 (2012): 63-84.; Feltran 2020Feltran, G. The Entangled City: Crime as Urban Fabric in Sao Paulo. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2020.; Villa & Pimenta 2019Villa, R.D. and M. S. Pimenta. “Violent non-State Actors and New Forms of Governance: Exploring the Colombian and Venezuelan Border Zone” Journal Of Human Security 15, no. 1 (2019): 6-18. doi: https://doi.org/10.12924/johs2019.15010006
https://doi.org/10.12924/johs2019.150100...
)?

By mapping the most prominent VNSAs and state operations, our research advances in this debate, showing that hybrid governance in the city presents a case of a dynamic hub of criminal actors and state forces, with constant monopoly disruptions, territorial control contestations, and overlaps on social control, resulting in a dispersion and diffusion of criminal control in other regions of Brazil. Furthermore, the hybrid governance in Rio de Janeiro is important for the city, but it also has consequences in illicit international markets. The VNSAs operating in Rio are part of a supply chain to deliver drugs domestically, serving the drug market through the city’s strategic position in the South Atlantic maritime route (Funari 2021Funari, G. “‘Family, God, Brazil, Guns…’: The State of Criminal Governance in Contemporary Brazil”. Bulletin of Latin American Research. (2021): 1-16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.13240
https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.13240...
), and intermediating cocaine trade with VNSA from Bolivia, Paraguay, Colombia, and Peru (Magaloni et al. 2020Magaloni, B., Vivanco, E. F. and Melo, V. “Killing in the Slums: Social Order, Criminal Governance, and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro”. American Political Science Review 114, no. 2 (2020): 552–572. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055419000856
https://doi.org/10.1017/S000305541900085...
; Brown & Hermann 2020Brown, S., Hermann, M. Transnational Crime and Black Spots: Rethinking Sovereignty and Global Economy. London: Palgrave. 2020.).

Consequently, when examining Rio de Janeiro, we prefer to call it a dynamic hub of violence and hybrid governance that spills over nationally and internationally, making it an important case to understand the current challenges to international security. Therefore, based on the literature review and the single case study methodology, we assume that hybrid governance is the presence of different sources of authority in the same space, where violence, rules and moral conduct are managed by both legal and illegal actors. And the most appropriate level of analysis for this phenomenon is the local one, by focusing on marginalized districts and neighborhoods, either urban or rural, that can overlap nationally, regionally or even transnationally.

The article is divided into three sections: first, we explore the concept of governance within the IR literature. Then, we explore the literature on hybrid governance, providing our conceptual contribution to understand our empirical case. And finally, in the third section we present the case study of Rio de Janeiro as a central locus to understand hybrid governance and its consequent diffusion, spread and overflow, with implications in border areas of South America and beyond.

Governance, legitimacy and authority: the local and the global connected in the dawn of the 21st Century

Since the beginning of IR studies, the Westphalian paradigm used the state-centric perspective of a system composed of units with central authorities in each of them. However, since the 1970s scholars suggested other orders, composed of different types of units, such as companies, non-governmental organizations, organized civil society, illegal actors, among others.

Hedley Bull (1977)Bull, H. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press). 1977. coined the term “neo-medievalism” to explain a world order in which the international society and individuals are governed by overlapping authorities and multiple identities, also leading to the privatization of security in several places (see also Kacowicz 2021Kacowicz, A. The Concept, Practice(s), and Relevance of ‘International Society’ in the 21st Century, Paper presented at International Studies Association Convention 2021. 2021. Available at: http://web.isanet.org/Web/Conferences/ISA2021/Archive/30c97479-19c7-4465-b8de-d5a43fc24483.pdf. Accessed June 06, 2021.
http://web.isanet.org/Web/Conferences/IS...
). Later, Fred Halliday (1994)Halliday, F. Rethinking international relations. New York, Macmillan International Higher Education, 1994. made some predictions on the international order that emerged in the early 1990s, many of which were confirmed in the 21st century. Among Halliday’s (1994Halliday, F. Rethinking international relations. New York, Macmillan International Higher Education, 1994., 67) main contributions is a new approach toward the state, which according to him would remain an actor of great importance, but coexisting with “transnational economic processes and transnational, cultural, religious and political communities”. Also, he mentioned that even after the fall of the Iron Curtain the “political and social tensions in the Third World will continue” (1994, 71).

Both predictions seem to be crucial to comprehend the complexity of there existing a hybrid governance on important social spaces locally—but with implications to global politics—in today’s so-called Global South. These states still present structural, historical and social dysfunctions, which may present different reactions to a globalized, connected and fluid world.

Later, Rosenau (2000Rosenau, J. 2000. “Governança, ordem e transformação na política mundial” In: Rosenau, James N. and E-O. Czempiel. Ordem e transformação na política mundial. 11-46. São Paulo: Imprensa Oficial do Estado., 15) addressed key concepts to reflect on state and alternative forms of governance. He determined that government “suggests activities supported by a formal authority, by the police power that guarantees the implementation of duly instituted policies”. This concept is related to the traditional state, since there is also recognition of a central authority and monopoly of force that orders a society through institutions linked to it. Governance, on the other hand, does not depend on this centralizing entity to exist. It is specifically about the ordering of a society, whether through formal government or informal institutions.

When investigating profound changes in the nature and the allocation of authority and legitimacy, Rosenau points to the rise of the role of subnational and transnational actors as a source of governance, such as non-state organizations, social movements, corporations, political parties, among others. In this context, state and statecraft lost prominence “as electronic and transport technology increased the autonomy of the various collectivities existing in the multicentric world, multiplying the number and type of transactions carried out across national borders without the participation or influence of States” (Rosenau 2000, 376).

Such sensitive aspects are applicable to the field of international security and can be seen in the cases of terrorist groups and criminal organizations, which benefit from globalization, internationalizing their activities. Thus, the logic of globalization and the loosening of borders allow criminals and terrorists to act transnationally, as shown in recent literature (Kacowicz et al. 2020Kacowicz, A. M., Lacovsky, E., Wajner, D. F. “Peaceful Borders and Illicit Transnational Flows in the Americas”. Latin American Research Review 55, no. 4 (2020): 727–741. doi: http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.755
http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.755...
).

In addition, one cannot neglect the role of the local and its impacts on the global order. This applies not only to the agency of corporations and NGOs, but also to the enhanced capacity of violent non-state actors that challenge domestic and international peace. In this regard, a better comprehension of local dynamics is key to understanding how it affects (and is affected) by the global (see MacGinty & Richmond 2013MacGinty, R. and Oliver P Richmond. “The Local Turn in Peace Building: a critical agenda for peace”. Third World Quarterly 34, no. 5 (2013): 763-783. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2013.800750
https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2013.80...
). In the case of South America the role of criminal organizations is central to these local-global dynamics in peace and security, given that they act locally and globally, but also impact regional peace, disseminating violence and expanding illicit markets (Ferreira & Richmond 2021).

Recent literature has shown how local Brazilian criminal organizations are a key node in the supply chain of cocaine and other illicit drugs worldwide (Ferreira 2019Ferreira, M. A. S. V. “Brazilian criminal organizations as transnational violent non-state actors: a case study of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC)”. Trends in Organized Crime 22, no. 2 (2019): 148-165. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-018-9354-7
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-018-9354-...
; Funari 2021Funari, G. “‘Family, God, Brazil, Guns…’: The State of Criminal Governance in Contemporary Brazil”. Bulletin of Latin American Research. (2021): 1-16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.13240
https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.13240...
; Brown & Hermann 2020Brown, S., Hermann, M. Transnational Crime and Black Spots: Rethinking Sovereignty and Global Economy. London: Palgrave. 2020.). To perform their activities, the development of governance capacities in urban social spaces to stock, organize and sell illicit goods locally and export them internationally has been paramount (Feltran 2020Feltran, G. The Entangled City: Crime as Urban Fabric in Sao Paulo. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2020.; Ferreira 2019Ferreira, M. A. S. V. “Brazilian criminal organizations as transnational violent non-state actors: a case study of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC)”. Trends in Organized Crime 22, no. 2 (2019): 148-165. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-018-9354-7
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-018-9354-...
; Ferreira & Richmond 2021; Lessing 2021)Lessing, B. “Conceptualizing Criminal Governance”. Perspectives on Politics 19, no. 3 (2021): 854-873. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001243
https://doi.org/10.1017/S153759272000124...
.

Crossroads between criminal control and state legitimacy: hybrid governance

In this study, we seek to understand how a dynamic of violence control is set up, in which formal governance from the state and an informal one from organized crime are mixed. In this regard, the system to be governed through the regulation of violence cannot be understood only through the most common criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, arms smuggling, extortion, among others. In addition, one must consider other dimensions of social life that escape formal or informal regulations, which make hybrid governance orders emerge.

First, it is important to mention that criminal organizations are able to create legitimate orders shared with state authority, making governance “no longer the exclusive domain of states or governments” (Williams 2008Williams, P. Violent non-state actors and national and international security. International Relations and Security Network. Zurich: ISN. 2008., 6). Having the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) as his main object of analysis, Gabriel Feltran (2020)Feltran, G. The Entangled City: Crime as Urban Fabric in Sao Paulo. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2020. presents a conceptual framework to understand the illicit authority created by criminal organizations: (i) these models of governance could be considered a normative regime labeled as “law of crime”, coexisting with state police and judicial normative regimes; (ii) there are other sources of normative regime, based, for example, on religious patterns, since churches and religious groups proliferated in urban peripheries in Brazil, exerting social and moral control. This led to a more flexible attitude with crime as a means for material prosperity and local security. Thus, “in each neighborhood, the Command negotiated with existing groups, securing the monopoly on the legitimate use of force in exchange for justice and providing protection. The regulation of retail drug pricing completed the arrangement” (Feltran 2020Feltran, G. The Entangled City: Crime as Urban Fabric in Sao Paulo. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2020., 8).

Accordingly, these criminal groups do not usually replace the state. Rather, they work toward social control to develop illicit business markets combined with social control of a given territory, co-existing with the state that extensively reproduces the violence in its quest to maintain the monopoly on legitimate use in favor of particular elites (Pearce 2010Pearce, J. “Perverse state formation and securitized democracy in Latin America”. Democratization, 17, no. 2 (2010): 286-306. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13510341003588716
https://doi.org/10.1080/1351034100358871...
). In this issue, the patterns of cooperation (and conflict) between state and non-state actors are key. Magaloni et al. (2020Magaloni, B., Vivanco, E. F. and Melo, V. “Killing in the Slums: Social Order, Criminal Governance, and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro”. American Political Science Review 114, no. 2 (2020): 552–572. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055419000856
https://doi.org/10.1017/S000305541900085...
, 6) sees “three types of OCGs [organized criminal organizations] according to the way they interact with the state: OCGs that emphasize violent confrontation, OCGs that mostly follow a strategy of enforcement evasion, and those criminal groups that follow a strategy of integration with the state”.

In turn, Lessing (2021)Lessing, B. “Conceptualizing Criminal Governance”. Perspectives on Politics 19, no. 3 (2021): 854-873. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001243
https://doi.org/10.1017/S153759272000124...
shows that where criminal governance prevails, four possibilities emerge to cooperate or conflict with the state: 1) the integration, in which criminal organizations penetrate the state and can use its resources for their own criminal ends; 2) the state-sponsored protection, in which the key benefits are illicit rents coming from illicit business, especially drug trafficking; 3) the alliance, in which states rely on “criminal organizations’ coercive force to neutralize third-party threats”, benefitting state-building. Nevertheless, he considers symbiosis a more apt concept, according to which state and criminal organizations share mutual benefits and dependence (Lessing 2021Lessing, B. “Conceptualizing Criminal Governance”. Perspectives on Politics 19, no. 3 (2021): 854-873. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001243
https://doi.org/10.1017/S153759272000124...
).

In spaces where violent non-state actors (VNSAs) are continually active, like criminal organizations, a hybrid governance emerges in which formal and informal norms and practices to control violence coexist. In a setting marked by interaction between a multiplicity of governance forms, hybridity tends to emerge. According to Villa et al. (2021Villa, R. D.; C. de M. Braga and M. A. S. V. Ferreira. “Violent Nonstate Actors and the Emergence of Hybrid Governance in South America” Latin American Research Review 56, no. 1 (2021): 36–49. doi: http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.756
http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.756...
, 39), hybrid governance is “fluid modes of formal and informal interaction between state and non-state actors in the intersection of both horizontal and vertical dimensions of governance”, in which horizontally non-state actors make instrumental use of violence and coercion to establish and maintain routine practices of social interaction, while vertically there is “a growing capability of these non-state actors in providing alternative forms of governance over spaces and populations, enacting diverse and competing claims of power and logics of order”. Then, in hybrid governance formations “state and non-state actors will behave in accordance with the other, constraining or calculating their actions by considering the other’s responses” (Villa et al. 2021Villa, R. D.; C. de M. Braga and M. A. S. V. Ferreira. “Violent Nonstate Actors and the Emergence of Hybrid Governance in South America” Latin American Research Review 56, no. 1 (2021): 36–49. doi: http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.756
http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.756...
, 39).

This approach is innovative compared to other analyses on the strategies employed by criminal organizations. Existing literature often focuses on intertwining governance in “weak” or “fragile” states and on the emerging “hybrid political orders” which manage to provide justice and security in societies experiencing violent conflict. Clunan and Trikunas (2010) have offered the idea of “ungoverned spaces”, which are actually governed to an extent by non-state actors.

As Clunan and Trinkunas (2010Clunan, A., & Trinkunas, H. (Eds.). 2010. Ungoverned spaces: Alternatives to state authority in an era of softened sovereignty. Stanford University Press., 5) points out, the term “ungoverned areas” refers to a type of threat that is still little known, capable of putting the international system at risk and in which states in general are ill-prepared to answer. The author also recognizes that the concept has been related, especially in political spheres, to fragile or failed states, which can lead to international interventions. The author understands that “ungoverned” spaces, as well as disputed urban or rural spaces, or even virtual or financial spaces, can become a refuge for illegal actors and, thus, a way for these actors to organize, train, recruit, raise funds, communicate and maintain such practices in a reasonably safe and regular basis.

Therefore, it is necessary to investigate ungoverned spaces not only from the perspective of lack of governance and the absence of the state. We seek to distance ourselves from parameters that are too state-centric, to examine the interaction between criminal actors, and to what extent they can be the result of perverse and/or corrupt state policies. Furthermore, by understanding that the absence of the state is not synonymous with chaos or anarchy, it is possible to determine what types of alternative governance arise in certain places (Villa & Pimenta 2019Villa, R.D. and M. S. Pimenta. “Violent non-State Actors and New Forms of Governance: Exploring the Colombian and Venezuelan Border Zone” Journal Of Human Security 15, no. 1 (2019): 6-18. doi: https://doi.org/10.12924/johs2019.15010006
https://doi.org/10.12924/johs2019.150100...
).

Thus, hybrid governance has been tested by many authors in different contexts and regions. Annete Idler, using the term arrangement of convenience, shows that hybrid governance can develop differently depending on the context, engaging in activities such as (2012, 68-69): (i) Violent combat; (ii) Cash sales and exchange agreements; (iii) Tactical alliances; (iv) Subcontracts; (v) Complementary logistics relationships; (vi) Strategic alliances; (vii) Peaceful coexistence.

Analyzing beyond the domestic dimensions of criminal/hybrid governance, Phil Williams (2005)Williams, P. Cooperación entre Organizaciones Criminales. IN: Berdal, M. and M. Serrano (orgs). Crímen Transnacional Organizado y seguridad internacional. Cambio y Continuidad. 108-128. Guadalajara: Fondo de Cultura Económica. 2005. presents a central dimension for the practice of Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) materialized in the maintenance of strategic alliances between different criminal groups around the world. Consequently, one cannot regard social spaces under hybrid governance only as a domestic issue. In a world where borders are blurred, criminals have open room to cooperate and move beyond the very local illicit market (see Kacowicz et al. 2020Kacowicz, A. M., Lacovsky, E., Wajner, D. F. “Peaceful Borders and Illicit Transnational Flows in the Americas”. Latin American Research Review 55, no. 4 (2020): 727–741. doi: http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.755
http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.755...
).

Cooperative linkages between criminal organizations can be important when attempting to enter new markets or to extend the territory. Furthermore, “they also help to share the risks, especially when a criminal organization has well-established patterns of corruption that offer a high degree of immunity and help protect its operations” (Williams 2005Williams, P. Cooperación entre Organizaciones Criminales. IN: Berdal, M. and M. Serrano (orgs). Crímen Transnacional Organizado y seguridad internacional. Cambio y Continuidad. 108-128. Guadalajara: Fondo de Cultura Económica. 2005., 116). Thus, the rationale of such groups is essentially to reduce operating costs, taking advantage of channels already obtained and dominated by different groups. It is important to show, however, that the patterns of cooperation can be fragile and flexible and vary among themselves, according to certain aspects, such as time of cooperation, type of activity and level of cooperation (Williams 2005Williams, P. Cooperación entre Organizaciones Criminales. IN: Berdal, M. and M. Serrano (orgs). Crímen Transnacional Organizado y seguridad internacional. Cambio y Continuidad. 108-128. Guadalajara: Fondo de Cultura Económica. 2005., 117).

It is noted that, eventually, such ties may break, and, in the case of criminal organizations, there are rarely contractual rules of law to resolve disputes between the parties—maybe one exception is the trials from Primeiro Comando da Capital, conducted with a particular code. Generally, when there is competition and disputes caused by distrust, or even by actions to exclude some group from business, violence is a resource used. Consequently, trust relationships are in fact fragile (Williams 2005Williams, P. Cooperación entre Organizaciones Criminales. IN: Berdal, M. and M. Serrano (orgs). Crímen Transnacional Organizado y seguridad internacional. Cambio y Continuidad. 108-128. Guadalajara: Fondo de Cultura Económica. 2005., 127).

For this reason, if the fundamental justification for action embedded in a hybrid governance context is the rational cost-benefit logic, transnational expansion can be regarded as the elimination of intermediaries and brokers, so as to improve access to drugs, arms and the final consumer market. Another reason can be the high costs of local disputes and violence outbreaks, which lead actors to bear the costs of expanding their operations to other regions.

So, for this article, we assume that hybrid governance is the presence of different sources of authority in the same space, where violence, rules and moral conduct are managed by both legal and illegal actors. The most appropriate level of analysis for this phenomenon is the local one, such as marginalized districts and neighborhoods, either urban or rural, which can overlap nationally, regionally or even transnationally. Hybrid governance has the following variables:

  1. Coexisting parallel and political judicial systems;

  2. Variations on the competition for territorial and violence control;

  3. Variations on violence explosion, oscillating from “equilibrium” to “local war”, depending on the arrangement made or disrupted by the actors;

  4. Different types of legitimacy, oscillating from accepted moral norms and diffused “good neighboring practices” until extreme coercion and violence demonstrations;

  5. Different scales of illegal activities, oscillating from local to national or even transnational operations.

In the following section, we examine the case of Rio de Janeiro considering the variables above. As can be noticed, our case is not only a central case to understand hybrid governance, but also a dynamic hub to understand the oscillations regarding legitimacy, use of violence and conflict. Particularly, the city is a hub for criminal organizations to develop their business, create norms for social and economic control, and expand business abroad (Funari 2020, 6; Magaloni et al. 2020Magaloni, B., Vivanco, E. F. and Melo, V. “Killing in the Slums: Social Order, Criminal Governance, and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro”. American Political Science Review 114, no. 2 (2020): 552–572. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055419000856
https://doi.org/10.1017/S000305541900085...
).

Exploring hybrid governance in Rio de Janeiro

The variation of violence associated with organized crime in Rio de Janeiro has been extensively explored in the literature (Misse 2011Misse, M. “Crime Organizado e Crime Comum no Rio de Janeiro: Diferenças e Afinidades”. Revista Sociologia e Politica 19, no. 40 (2011): 13-25. doi: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-44782011000300003
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-4478201100...
; Zaluar & Barcellos 2014Zaluar, A; Barcellos, C. “Homicídios e disputas territoriais nas favelas do Rio de Janeiro” Revista de Saúde Pública 48, no.1 (2014): 94-102. doi: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-8910.2014048004822
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-8910.20140...
; Cano & Ribeiro 2013Cano, I, and E. Ribeiro. “A seletividade das “Políticas de Pacificação” no Rio de Janeiro” In: Transformações Territoriais no Rio de Janeiro do Século XXI, edited by Angela Moulin S. Penalva Santos e Maria Josefina G. Sant’Anna. 123-156. Rio de Janeiro: Gramma. 2013.; Arias 2014)Arias, E. D. “Violence, citizenship, and religion in a Rio de Janeiro favela” Latin American Research Review 49 (2014): 149-167. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43670221
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43670221...
. Four central VNSAs linked to organized crime (OC) fight for social control and aim to dominate illicit markets: Comando Vermelho – CV (Red Command), Amigo dos Amigos – ADA (Friend of friends), Terceiro Comando Puro – TCP (Third Pure Command) and the Militias. The clash between militias is tied with state agencies and even political representation with the city and state councils, while trafficking is an element of complexity added to the Latin American cases of confrontation between rival factions of drug traffic outside of Colombia.

Table 1 Organized Crime and Militias
Nature of VNSAs Criminal factions (CV - ADA- TCP) Militias
Origin The groups are organized in cells located in communities (favelas) linked with broader franchising of OC. The ranks of the militias come from public security state agencies, like police, firefighters, state police officers, military personnel. Most are retired, but there are also police officers on active duty.
Material sources The market is primarily linked with drug trafficking, control of public services (cable TV, etc.) and irregular public transport services. Private security services, smuggling, drug trafficking, real estate developments.
Imposition of Standards and law enforcement Law enforcement is characterized by “mano dura” strategies. As militias are linked with public security agencies, law enforcement is less effective.
Legitimacy and Authority High degree of enforcement of norms and rules which must be followed by the inhabitants of the ruled territory. The social capital develops an important role in the militias, due to the origins of the ranks. As the personnel belong or belonged to police or military ranks, they have a strong feeling of unity and identity.
Violence exposure The violence perpetrated by criminal factions (CV, ADA, and TCP) are very public and the perception by the population is high. Violence strategies are commonly less public than the usual criminal factions.
  • Source: Prepared by authors, based on the following literature: Misse 2011Misse, M. “Crime Organizado e Crime Comum no Rio de Janeiro: Diferenças e Afinidades”. Revista Sociologia e Politica 19, no. 40 (2011): 13-25. doi: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-44782011000300003
    https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-4478201100...
    , Zaluar & Barcellos 2014Zaluar, A; Barcellos, C. “Homicídios e disputas territoriais nas favelas do Rio de Janeiro” Revista de Saúde Pública 48, no.1 (2014): 94-102. doi: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-8910.2014048004822
    https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-8910.20140...
    , Cano & Ribeiro 2013, aCano, I, and E. Ribeiro. “A seletividade das “Políticas de Pacificação” no Rio de Janeiro” In: Transformações Territoriais no Rio de Janeiro do Século XXI, edited by Angela Moulin S. Penalva Santos e Maria Josefina G. Sant’Anna. 123-156. Rio de Janeiro: Gramma. 2013., and Arias 2014Arias, E. D. “Violence, citizenship, and religion in a Rio de Janeiro favela” Latin American Research Review 49 (2014): 149-167. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43670221
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/43670221...
    .
  • Crime, public security, and policies related to the control and reduction of violence find in Rio de Janeiro a setting of mistakes and repetition, with little scope for new public security agendas beyond mano dura/zero tolerance policies. Over the past 30 years, public security policies have been based on the logic of confrontation in favelas, which disregards that organized crime and violence are not exclusive to a part of the population which it is historically segregated socially, economically and racially.

    The Rio de Janeiro Institute of Public Security (ISP-RJ) divided the State of Rio into seven Regions of Public Security and 39 Areas of Public Security. The four regions of the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro present a variation between deaths by public security agents (mainly due to police operations), and homicide rates.

    Region 1 (white) is the central area of the city with a significant presence of well-known OC like Comando Vermelho. It encompasses Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon, and other middle-class neighborhoods. Region 2 is mainly composed of neighborhoods of the west zone of the city which is ruled by militias. Region 3 refers to the cities of Baixada Fluminense, which are part of the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro; it has historically been a place of high criminality and is witnessing a “battle” between the militias and drug trafficking groups. Region 4 encompasses the cities of Niterói and São Gonçalo, which faced an increase of violent lethality and police-related deaths due to the migration of criminals who left the communities where the Pacifying Police Units were being implemented since 2008.

    Here violent lethality and deaths due to the intervention of public security agents are two different categories, but complementary. Violent lethality is a cluster category which is composed of intentional homicide, police-related deaths, theft with death, bodily injury followed by death. Deaths refer to the violence between individuals. The category “Police-related deaths” focuses on the violence perpetrated by state agents in different contexts and its importance to the general violence scenario.

    Chart 1
    Variation of violence in Rio de Janeiro Regions of Security by Police-related deaths and Homicides (2010 - 2020)

    Source: Instituto de Segurança Pública – ISP https://www.ispvisualizacao.rj.gov.br:4434/, retrieved in May 12, 2021


    In Region 1 police used less deadly force when compared with regions 2 and 3, and criminal use of violence as measured by homicides declined in 2018. In Region 2 police-related deaths increased in 2018 at a rate roughly 200 percent higher than in region 1, but homicides fell to roughly half the rate of Region 1. In Region 3 police repression in 2018 increased dramatically at a rate 14 times higher than in region 1, but homicides decreased only slightly more than in Region 1.

    If we observe each of the regions in more detail, we can notice violence dynamics and hybrid governance. In region 1, the richest area of Rio de Janeiro, the highly corrupted police have developed a relationship with drug traffickers. Region 2 is under the control of militias, whose enterprises are focused on private security, public services, and illegal real-estate developments. Here we observe a stabilized situation of all variables, with low numbers of police-related deaths and criminal homicides. Region 3 and 4 are the scenarios of territorial disputes between drug trafficking and militias. Here the police weaken the drug trafficking organizations to facilitate the territorial domination by the militias (Zaluar & Conceição 2007).

    An example of this dynamic between militias and public security actors could be the election of representative Nadinho to Rio de Janeiro’s city hall, starting an unprecedented expansion of militias on the periphery of Region 1 (Penha, Engenho de Dentro, Pilares, and Ramos) and Region 2. It is important to emphasize that an intrinsic participation of police forces is established in this process of militia advancement. The seizure of the new areas occurred through armed conflicts between militiamen and police, and not infrequently, the militia’s onslaught was preceded by police incursions that weakened the traffickers (Zaluar & Conceição 2007).

    Comparing Regions 1 and 2, we notice that OC/militia had strong hierarchical structures in these Regions and they could have made the strategic decision to reduce violent behavior after police repression, while in Regions 3 and 4 OC/militia lack that capability. Hybrid governance characteristics might be explaining how different OC groups develop different strategies to regulate their use of violence.

    The role of militias in these three Regions, as is suggested by this analysis, has increased territory control, created arrangements with state actors, and, consequently, developed a softer use of violence. Since 2011, the Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecution Service has been identified as an association between trafficking and militias in Rio de Janeiro. One could hypothesize that militias are attempting to maximize the gains from both trafficking and the sale of security to commerce and the general population through extortion. According MPRJ reports, this association has already reached a significant dimension in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, as can be observed in the Figure 1 below:

    Figure 1
    Territorial division of public security of the state of Rio de Janeiro

    Source: Integrated Security Regions. Institute of Public security, available at https://www.ispdados.rj.gov.br:4432/Conteudo.html, retrieved in May 30, 2021.


    Figure 2
    Map of the OC groups in Rio de Janeiro

    Source: Mapa dos Grupos Armados do Rio de Janeiro. Fogo Cruzado, NEV-USP, Grupo de Estudos dos Novos Ilegalismos UFF, Disque-Denúncia and Pista News. 2020. Caption: Red: Comando Vermelho, Blue: Militias; Yellow: Amigos dos amigos, Green: Terceiro Comando Puro, Grey: under dispute. Available at: https://nev.prp.usp.br/mapa-dos-grupos-armados-do-rio-de-janeiro/


    The dynamics of the expansion of militias in Rio de Janeiro cannot be understood without considering the dynamics of police actions. According to the report from a consortium of civil society institutions—Fogo Cruzado, GENI-UFF, NEV-USP, Pista News—the neighborhoods where there is a predominance of disputed territories (32.3%) concentrate the largest number of police operations (45.5%), followed by ones where the predominant armed group is the Comando Vermelho, which, although represents only 24.2% of the neighborhoods under the control of armed groups, concentrates 40.9% of police operations. On the other hand, we can read in the same report that in the case of militias, the opposite is true: in 25.5% of the neighborhoods under the control of armed groups militias prevail, however, only 6.5% of police operations carried out in 2019 took place in these neighborhoods. Translating this dominance into indexes, we will find that 51.7% of Rio de Janeiro’s neighborhoods are under the control of militias, containing 3.7 million people, while drug trafficking (Comando Vermelho, Amigos dos Amigos and Terceiro Comando Puro) has been losing ground, but is at the same time under greater pressure from police forces.

    Chart 2
    Percentage of neighborhoods and population under control of armed groups in the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro in 2019

    Source: Fogo Cruzado, GENI-UFF, NEV-USP, Pista News available at https://atualprodutora.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/apresentacao-16.10.2020.pdf in May 25, 2021


    The variable of police interventions as a facilitator of the expansion of militias in Rio de Janeiro must be understood according to Misse (2011)Misse, M. “Crime Organizado e Crime Comum no Rio de Janeiro: Diferenças e Afinidades”. Revista Sociologia e Politica 19, no. 40 (2011): 13-25. doi: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-44782011000300003
    https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-4478201100...
    , who developed the idea of “security as a commodity”, an asset that is negotiated as a fundamental element for the implantation of a certain governance in a given space. This asset guarantees that such governance will be effective depending on the negotiation with state agents.

    The decision of Rio militias to engage in drug trafficking requires the update of the interpretation of the roles of OC/militias and police in the management of organized crime as well as their strategy for the use of violence. Probably the fall in homicide rate in Rio de Janeiro is not related to a public security policy. As Garzon-Vergara (2016) suggests, we may be experiencing the regulation of violence by VNSAs, OC/militias. An important dimension that emerges from the data is that violence management may be beneficial for the state. The government may exploit the positive data of the falling homicide rate to claim success to its constituencies. Thus, society benefits by having less violence, but loses the possibility of the state’s successful mitigation of violence.

    As can be observed in Graph 3, this decrease has impacted the homicide rate in Brazil, where the Southeast region (where Rio is located) shows a different trend if compared to other regions, where criminal groups from Rio (especially CV) and São Paulo are competing with local drug trafficking gangs. When analyzing the homicide rate curve in the Southeast region, where competition between factions is more stabilized, it can be noted that the homicide rate presents a behavior opposite to that of the North and Northeast regions, where criminal organizations compete for drug market control.

    Chart 3
    Comparative Analysis on the homicide rate - North, Northeast and Southeast Regions

    Source: Atlas da Violência, IPEA - https://www.ipea.gov.br/atlasviolencia/dados-series/17, retrieved in May 15, 2021.


    The single case study of Rio de Janeiro designed by the present conceptual framework claims that hybrid governance is the presence of different sources of authority in the same space, where the following variables exist: (i) Coexisting parallel and political judicial systems; (ii) Variations on the dispute for territorial and violence control; (iii) Variations on violence explosions; (iv) Different types of legitimacy; (v) Different scales of illegal activities: from local to national or even transnational operations. Considering these variables and the data presented, the following analysis shows how hybrid governance developed in the context of Rio de Janeiro, which had an impact in other regions of Brazil and also created challenges for other countries, due to the expansion of illicit markets facilitated by VNSA, especially Comando Vermelho.

    (i) Coexisting parallel political and judicial systems

    In areas of hybrid governance, the coexistence of parallel political and legal systems is clearly noted. On the one hand, we have the presence of the state translated into repressive policies, especially in areas controlled by the OC. On the other, the presence becomes almost non-existent when talking about areas controlled by militias—which are actually governed by an informal regime neglected by state security forces. Consequently, the state’s political system in areas of hybrid governance is present in a few moments, such as during elections or when harshly repressing a criminal organization. However, its legal system is almost absent, functioning perfectly to reproduce social and economic inequalities.

    In turn, the parallel political and legal system of VNSAs becomes more intensely present and coexists with the state. This is seen in the control of violence and in the legitimacy obtained from the population. Faced with a negligent state, VNSAs create their own systems of political and legal control, as seen clearly in several locations in Rio de Janeiro.

    Finally, organizations with few direct links with the state (especially police and judicial agencies) will find the costs of using public violence to be high and the benefits low since public perception of the corruption of the state is likely to generate a backlash rather than new opportunities.

    (ii) Variations on the competition for territorial and violence control

    The intensity of law enforcement is likely to matter more against criminal organizations than militias. The militias are linked to current or former police officers, turning security institutions away from their territories. However, OC territories are often more attacked by police, resulting in more violence for social space control. Consequently, OC is more strategic in the use of violence. Criminals perceive the risks of violence and outweigh the benefits of using it to pursue their criminal activities, limiting the resort to violence.

    Also, perception of violence can stimulate both fear and resistance. The costs of generating high perceptions of violence when it creates resistance will be higher than when it creates fear, at least in the short to medium term. The benefits to perpetrators of that perception from those resisting will be lower, as they will be less likely to purchase goods or services from the perpetrators. Benefits from the fearful should be lower in the long term as potential victims seek to minimize contact with the perpetrators of violence. This interaction can be explored when analyzing some statistics: 76% of the population of Rio de Janeiro supports federal intervention in public security, 92% is afraid of being killed in an assault, 87% is afraid of being murdered and 75% of people, that is, almost 4 million people, declared that they heard at least one shooting in the neighborhoods (“Rio sob intervenção 2” 2019). At the same time, the perception of violence or “visible violence” varies according to geographical areas and OC predominance.

    (iii) Variations on violence explosions

    There are currently significant variations in Rio de Janeiro when it comes to outbreaks of violence. An analysis of official documents and think-tank reports shows that increased violence is common when police officers are murdered in the city. In these cases, massacres or brutal use of violence is easily seen, as noted in the Fallet Fogueteiro slaughter in 2019 (15 people murdered by the state) and in 2021, in the police action in the Jacarezinho favela (28 people murdered by the state).

    These cases usually occur in areas strongly controlled by rival militias’ OCs, which makes us conjecture that the police act more brutally against some criminal organizations to the detriment of others, especially in protecting the militias that are usually formed by ex-police and protected by active police.

    On the other hand, it is noted that when there is strong hegemony of an OC or militia, there is a tendency for control in episodes of explosion of violence. This is not to say that such areas are pacified. There remains a reality of structural violence against the population neglected by the state, with no prospect of structural changes in the lives of people living in marginalized areas of Rio de Janeiro.

    (iv) Different kinds of legitimacy

    The structure of OC has other impacts on how and when violence is used. Snyder and Durán-Martínez point out that the structure of illicit markets influences the structure of state-sponsored protection rackets, and thus the propensity for violence (Snyder & Duran-Martínez 2009, 259). Legitimacy must be considered in terms of the resilience of populations that live under the rules of the different OC, in such a way that the perception of violence and insecurity significantly influence this legitimacy.

    The analysis of the data indicates that, although there have been outbreaks of violence between armed groups, the expansion of the militias itself already indicates some greater acceptance by the local community. This means that the provision of some basic services and, as already explained in a previous section, the decrease in violence perpetrated by the militia may have increased their legitimacy in the eyes of the population, when compared to the legitimacy of drug trafficking groups, who are in more constant shock with the police, and fail to generate a greater perception of security in the population.

    (v) Different scales of illegal activities: from local to national or even transnational operations

    Even though the violence in Rio de Janeiro is connected with the control of the drug trafficking market, it would be insufficient to say that it is a purely local phenomenon. Illegal markets in the city directly connect with international dynamics of illicit business, especially drug and arms trafficking. For example, although it is common to find AK-47 rifles wielded by criminal leaders in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, this type of weaponry is not used in Brazil even by the armed forces (see Dreyfus et al. 2008Dreyfus, P., Guedes, L. E., Lessing, B., Bandeira, A. R., de Sousa Nascimento, M., & Rivero, P. S. Small Arms in Rio de Janeiro. The Guns, the Buypack, and the Victims. Small Arms Survey, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, 2008. http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/C-Special-reports/SAS-SR09-Rio.pdf (Accessed Sep. 17, 2021).
    http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin...
    ; Misse 2011Misse, M. “Crime Organizado e Crime Comum no Rio de Janeiro: Diferenças e Afinidades”. Revista Sociologia e Politica 19, no. 40 (2011): 13-25. doi: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-44782011000300003
    https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-4478201100...
    ). Also, the CV has expanded to North and Northeast states, initiating another competition, in a national level, against the biggest OC in Brazil, the PCC, with disputes around the international drug route coming mostly from the border areas with Colombia (UNODC 2019United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime – UNODC. “Global Study on Homicide: homicide, development, and the Sustainable Development Goals”. Booklet 4, 2019. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/global-study-on-homicide.html. Accessed May 30th, 2021.
    https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-...
    ; Ferreira 2019Ferreira, M. A. S. V. “Brazilian criminal organizations as transnational violent non-state actors: a case study of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC)”. Trends in Organized Crime 22, no. 2 (2019): 148-165. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-018-9354-7
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-018-9354-...
    )

    We add here how the dynamics of the city and its hybrid governance may have implications for examining other important cases for studies on international peace and security. We mention here, for example, that the main criminal organization in the city is no longer restricted to the walls of the favelas. On the contrary, it has the capacity to lead the drug market in cooperation with local OCs like the FDN in Amazonas (see Ferreira 2019Ferreira, M. A. S. V. “Brazilian criminal organizations as transnational violent non-state actors: a case study of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC)”. Trends in Organized Crime 22, no. 2 (2019): 148-165. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-018-9354-7
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-018-9354-...
    ), and in cooperation with criminal gangs in Colombia.

    Consequently, Rio de Janeiro is a dynamic hub to understand hybrid governance in two ways. First, its competing dynamics for drug market and control of violence makes powerful criminal groups emerge who reverberate nationally, as seen in the expansion of CV to borders of South America and in the emulation of the mode of operation by police in other states. Second, these same groups resonate in drug market supply chains, cooperating with other gangs and mafias to perform their illicit activities worldwide (see Funari 2021Funari, G. “‘Family, God, Brazil, Guns…’: The State of Criminal Governance in Contemporary Brazil”. Bulletin of Latin American Research. (2021): 1-16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.13240
    https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.13240...
    ; Brown & Hermann 2020Brown, S., Hermann, M. Transnational Crime and Black Spots: Rethinking Sovereignty and Global Economy. London: Palgrave. 2020.; UNODC 2019)United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime – UNODC. “Global Study on Homicide: homicide, development, and the Sustainable Development Goals”. Booklet 4, 2019. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/global-study-on-homicide.html. Accessed May 30th, 2021.
    https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-...
    .

    Conclusion

    This article analyzed hybrid governance in order to expand and update the concept and its application possibilities looking to the case of Rio de Janeiro. The chosen case has a large part of its territory and population under the control of organized crime, whether linked to drug trafficking (CV, ADA and TCP) or to the militias, leading to the rise of a dynamic hub of VNSAs that expands its markets and more of operation nationally and beyond.

    Such groups are somewhat settled in their territories, and some spaces are still under dispute. In parallel, such groups have different degrees of disputes with the police, which generated violence outbreaks and different types of violence control. As a result, this phenomenon has changed the perception of security in local communities, which may, on the one hand, have caused the expansion of the militias that control most of the territory; on the other hand, it may have been one of the determining factors for the expansion of CV to other regions of the country, especially in the North and Northeast, assuming the costs of a dispute at the national level with the largest OC in the country, the PCC, as well as creating opportunities for transactions with OC beyond Brazilian borders.

    This last phenomenon, the overflow of the CV, its gain in operational scale, as well as the disputes and hybrid governance arrangements in other regions of the country, can certainly be analyzed in the continuity of this research, as well as an analysis of the corrosion of institutions in locations where OC operates. In this sense, the choice of a methodology that allows the inclusion of variables and the continuous theoretical-conceptual update seems to be the right choice when one intends to explore a phenomenon as complex as hybrid governance, as well as an action as dynamic as the performance of the OCs.

    Therefore, this is not a mere discussion on how transnational crimes affect local peace, but rather on how a dynamic of local hybrid governance can be capable of going beyond the city’s borders, performing a gain of its capacity and expanding itself to other regions. Finally, when examining Rio de Janeiro we can observe it as a dynamic hub of violence and hybrid governance that spills over to other regions of the country and South America, consequently affecting the international market of drugs and each of the related local communities, and so on, performing a vicious cycle of violence in different regions of the world.

    Acknowledgements

    This research was partially funded by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Bolsa Produtividade (Nível 2), granted to Marcos Alan Ferreira, Grant Number #302285/2019-9.

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    • 1
      This study adopts the geographic delimitation of the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro (MRRJ). It includes Rio de Janeiro and 21 neighbouring cities with approximately 12.2 million inhabitants. Retrieved from https://www.modelarametropole.com.br/rmrj/ in May 29, 2021.
    • 2
      This methodological choice is important, since when giving life to a conceptual construction, it is also willing to show a methodological path that is self-constructed. From the moment the theoretical construction process starts, it gradually moves forward. As addressed by Ben Willis, “[S]ingle case study analysis has a great deal to offer as a means of both understanding and explaining contemporary international relations”. Moreover, “the ‘uniqueness’ of the explanation is recognized, but it is described in more general terms. A single historical event cannot be ignored, but it must be considered as part of a class of such events ‘even if it happens only once’” (George 1979George, A. L. “Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison”. In: Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory and Policy. 64-124. New York: Free Press. 1979., 43).

    Publication Dates

    • Publication in this collection
      15 Nov 2021
    • Date of issue
      2021

    History

    • Received
      31 May 2021
    • Accepted
      11 Aug 2021
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